Tag: Ghosting

If you’ve searched for love online recently, you will have probably come across the term, “Ghosting”. This term means that you suddenly don’t hear from a person again and quite often, it comes out of the blue. The person you’ve been chattingto disappears forever like a ghost and they’ll cut off communication completely. You can end up driving yourself crazy wondering what you did wrong and questioning why you didn’t hear from them again.

When dating online in the past, I have ghosted myself, but I have also been ghosted too. In the majority of cases, ghosting is not very nice, but there are times when ghosting is necessary and can be justified. After you’ve been on a date, even if you got on well with that person, a common outcome is that you both say goodbye and you never message each other again. This is normally because there is no romantic connection and it’s an easy and straightforward outcome for both people.

Of course, ghosting can occur at any time, whether it’s before you’ve actually met someone face to face, after a first date, or after you’ve been on several dates with someone – or even longer.

Reasons why it can be hurtful to ghost someone:

Getting over a break-up can be really tough, regardless of whether it was a long-term or short-term relationship and anyone who’s been ghosted knows how painful it can be. It leaves no way for the person ghosted (the person being ignored) to make sense of what happened. There will be many unanswered questions: “What did I do wrong?”; “Did he/she ever really care about me?”; “What is wrong with me?”; and even, “Did something happen to him/her?” There are often lasting effects on the ghostee’s self-esteem, particularly if they already suffer from issues around self-confidence. It may be helpful if you can understand the possible reasons for being ghosted, although sometimes, this could actually be more hurtful.

Reasons that lead to people ghosting:

1. Avoidance of confrontation – they might not like the person they’ve just been on a date with so they don’t want to take things further. Worried the other person may have a bad reaction to this, they take the easy option of ghosting so as to avoid any bad reaction and confrontation. This person would rather walk away or change the subject than get into an argument.

2. Fear of emotional intimacy – they might fear the prospect of being in a relationship and fear getting close to someone. They get cold feet and think that ghosting is the best thing to do. They may have been hurt in the past. Fear of intimacy is a long-term problem and is not easily overcome. Usually it requires awareness followed by effort, in order to overcome this fear.

3. Narcissistic personality style – a narcissist is unlikely to be empathic about the emotional pain of the person they are dating. Lack of empathy is a hallmark sign of narcissistic personality and is likely the reason for at least some instances of ghosting.

4. Fear of a violent reaction: the person who suddenly disappears is afraid of an aggressive reaction to a breakup statement. This might not necessarily be classed as ghosting, but rather a self-protective measure. There are times when sudden disappearance is the only safe way out.

When is it OK to “Ghost” someone?

Situations do arise when it’s OK to ghost someone without any explanation whatsoever. There are plenty of situations where ghosting is not only OK, but actually your best option. If you’ve spent any time in the world of online dating, you’ll know that people don’t always behave correctly, so there might be times when you have to cut off communication with certain people instantly.

Ghosting is one technique that works and you might even need to block that person too. Situations where ghosting can be justified could be the following:

Dating is becoming more complicated. With one in four of us now finding love online, a completely new language for modern dating has been created. It feels like a new dating term or trend is being created every week.

You may have heard of ‘ghosting’ where people don’t have the civility to end things verbally or by text. They ‘ghost’ the person they’ve been dating, which means they ignore them with no explanation. This is just one of the many new dating terms people use nowadays. Here are 5 new digital dating behaviours to be aware of:

Ghosting:
Getting over a break-up can be really tough, regardless of whether it was a long-term or short-term relationship. Ghosting means that you don’t hear from that person again. They disappear forever like a ghost and they will cut off all communication completely. You can end up driving yourself crazy wondering what you did wrong and questioning why you did not hear from that person again.

Zombieing:
Zombieing is another popular new dating term and it’s where you’ve been ghosted for a while and then from out of nowhere, your ghoster gets back in touch. The person you were dating disappears, before they come back from the “dead” months later with some lame excuse to justify their prolonged absence. They are most likely to get in contact with you again through a social media platform or through an out-of-the-blue text message. Usually, the zombieing happens just when you’ve gotten over the hurt of having them ghost you in the first place. Then, all of a sudden, they ‘subtly’ reappear causing more emotional upset.

Submarining:
This is when you stop seeing someone because they ghosted you and they have cut off all communication. They then reappear after some time and act like nothing happened. This is similar to Zombieing but Submarining is actually worse – after resurfacing, they’ll offer no explanation, acknowledgement or excuse whatsoever for their disappearance. Basically, it’s when someone you’ve been seeing or talking to vanishes without a trace (much like a submarine when it sinks to the depths of the ocean), then without warning, they “resurface” and slide back into your inbox like nothing ever happened. People who submarine you either want to hide the reasons for disappearing or they just want to gloss over it.

Stashing:
Stashing is the latest dishonest dating technique that you may have been a victim of. It occurs when the person you’re dating doesn’t introduce you to their friends or family and doesn’t post about you on social media. Basically, you’re their secret boyfriend or girlfriend, while they feel justified in “stashing” you in the corner, pretending nothing is going on to the outside world and keeping their options open. Stashers don’t want a loving relationship with you and will be chatting to and seeing other people.

Breadcrumbing:
Breadcrumbing is when you send out flirty but non-committal messages (“breadcrumbs”) to a person, but you’re not really interested in dating them. You send the messages in order to lure a sexual partner without expending too much effort, which equates to leading someone on. If you’ve been dating someone, breadcrumbing can also mean you don’t have the guts to break things off with them completely, as the breadcrumber doesn’t like confrontation.